Mark Steinmetz: Summertime // Love
The Gallery at Leica Store San Francisco is pleased to host Summertime // Love, a solo exhibition by acclaimed photographer Mark Steinmetz, on view from September 1 through October 31, 2025.
With a vision attuned to subtle gestures and the quiet drama of everyday life, Steinmetz has spent decades creating photographs that feel both deeply personal and timeless. This exhibition highlights selections from his celebrated Summertime series—tender portraits and languid scenes infused with the haze of youth—presented alongside images captured during his travels around the world.
From sunlit afternoons in American suburbs to shadowed streets in faraway cities, Steinmetz’s photographs speak in a language of patience and empathy. They reveal the universal and the particular at once, distilling the uniqueness of an unrepeatable moment while also conveying the enduring essence of place.
About the Author
Mark Steinmetz (b. 1961) is an American photographer celebrated for his atmospheric black-and-white work that reveals the understated poetry within everyday life. For decades, he has chronicled the nuances of American experience—especially in the South—through images that highlight intimacy, mood, and the delicate fabric of human relationships.
He earned his MFA in photography from Yale University in 1986. In the early 1980s, Steinmetz spent a pivotal year in Los Angeles working alongside the legendary street photographer Garry Winogrand, an encounter that shaped his instinctive and observational way of working. Since the mid-1980s, he has remained dedicated to medium-format black-and-white film, developing and printing each image in his own darkroom, a practice that underscores his devotion to craftsmanship and tradition.
His photographs often center on ordinary people and familiar settings—children at summer camps, travelers passing through airports, or strangers encountered on city streets—moments that, though fleeting, open windows onto deeper emotional truths. Among his notable bodies of work are South East, Greater Atlanta, Summer Camp, and ATL, the latter commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta as part of its Picturing the South series.
Steinmetz’s work has been exhibited by leading institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His photographs are represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among many others.
Alongside his photographic practice, he has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Emory University. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife, photographer Irina Rozovsky, and their daughter. Together, they run The Humid, a photography workshop space dedicated to fostering creative exchange and mentorship.
Mark Steinmetz: Summertime // Love
from September 1 through October 31, 2025
Leica Gallery San Francisco – USA
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